This painting was inspired by a mask Pacita saw outside the house of a traditional medicine man in rural Sri Lanka. It was a traditional medical exorcism mask with each of the 20 smaller, individual masks representing a particular deadly disease, such as cholera, smallpox, typhoid, etc. Pacita was mesmerized by this mask and started making a trapunto painting that night on the floor of the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo. Over the weeks as the painting grew, she ran out of floor space and the hotel manager graciously upgraded her to his largest Presidential Suite so that she could continue painting. On her return plane trip to the Philippines she was way overweight because of her painting, but couldn't wait to land and continue working. When she was back in her studio, she decided to name the painting "Marcos and his cronies" after the corrupt Philippine dictator, and his greedy cabinet members, military generals and supporting businessmen who were raping the country. Most prominently, she placed Marcos standing on the head of a bejeweled Imelda Marcos, playing on the Dantesque theme that she was in the lowest level of Hell.